RDP for High DPI Monitors?

A client is having some problems with their laptop. They use RDP to remote into their work PC, but the laptop they are using is a small 13" Sony Vaio laptop, but with 1920x1080 resolution.

Everything is pretty small on the laptop anyway, but the problem is much worse after connecting with RDP, where everything is almost unreadable.

I have done the obvious with changing the resolution on the server, the RDP size, forced scaling on the terminal server etc, but nothing has worked.

Something else which I would normally do is change the laptop resolution to something a little lower, but the laptop only has 2 resolution settings, the big one, and a 1024x768 (wrong ratio).

Any ideas?

UPDATE

I found a solution, which is not to bother looking for a remote desktop client that can resize , zoom or scale, but instead found some software called "NRC", or "Netbook Resolution Customizer".

It enables more resolutions to choose from, and even set hotkeys to switch between them.

http://www.netbookfiles.com/1/netbook-resolution-customizer-version-10-beta2/

Joey

Posted 2014-06-09T13:45:57.883

Reputation: 376

Does it become readable/usable when using 1024*768 – Dave – 2014-06-09T14:02:16.877

It sounds strange that the laptop supports only this two resolutions. Is the driver installed properly? – EliadTech – 2014-06-09T14:46:37.670

@EliadTech Yes, It has all drivers and software installed from OEM. – Joey – 2014-06-09T16:17:16.343

@DaveRook I found some software to force resolution changes, and am testing out 1024*767. Although it displays way too big, something in between 1920x1080 would be ideal. – Joey – 2014-06-09T16:18:20.820

JOEY please don't answer question in the answer, you can answer your own question :) – Dave – 2014-06-09T17:31:18.650

@DaveRook I would but I'm new to SuperUser thus can't answer my own questions yet. – Joey – 2014-06-09T19:57:30.910

Answers

I found a solution, which is not to bother looking for a remote desktop client that can resize , zoom or scale, but instead found some software called "NRC", or "Netbook Resolution Customizer".

It enables more resolutions to choose from, and even set hotkeys to switch between them.

http://www.netbookfiles.com/1/netbook-resolution-customizer-version-10-beta2/

Joey

Posted 2014-06-09T13:45:57.883

Reputation: 376

For me the best solution by far is to download Remote Desktop Connection Manager (2.7 or newer). That by itself doesn't fix the problem. Go to the application properties > compatibility tab and uncheck "disable display scaling on high DPI".

Microsoft's remote desktop for Mac does the scaling automatically. Shame they don't have a good default client on Windows.

Alex Korchemniy

Posted 2014-06-09T13:45:57.883

Reputation: 11

In an RDP connection file (you can make one if you open RDP, and then choose the button Save as) you can store options such as resolution, going full screen, etc.

If you go full screen, the RDP session will automatically set the remote resolution to whatever you use. So if the laptop uses 1920x1080 then the remote resolution will become that as well.

This means that the view should be the same, unless you changed the DPI setting locally. You can hack this on a terminal server, but note that it'll work for all users.

You can try making a shortcut and enter the following parameters:

mstsc /v:servername[:port] /f /w:1280 /h:720

Note that /v:servername[:port] means /v: (enter name of the server and optionally add : + portnumber)

LPChip

Posted 2014-06-09T13:45:57.883

Reputation: 42 190

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it doesn't realy change the resolution, just the window's size/ – EliadTech – 2014-06-09T14:47:15.607

@EliadTech thats why I added the /f switch, to go full screen. – LPChip – 2014-06-09T14:50:31.240

@LPChip It doesn't stretch to full screen, only shows a smaller window surrounded by black. Thanks for your help though. – Joey – 2014-06-09T16:19:12.157

RDP 8.1 introduces something called DPI remoting. This basically takes the DPI settings on the client machine and can send them to the server machine such that the aspect of the desktop is maintained. RDP 8.1 requires Windows 8.1 / 2012 R2 running on the server side and an RDP 8.1 client (it can be Win7 + latest QFE for RDP).

Here are more details about the feature: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rds/archive/2013/12/16/resolution-and-scaling-level-updates-in-rdp-8-1.aspx

cdavid

Posted 2014-06-09T13:45:57.883

Reputation: 845

can you elaborate what app - and do you mean it just changes the native resolution of your screen? – Simon – 2014-10-20T03:50:02.890

Thanks, but the issue is with the local PC, which has a tiny 13" screen on a 1920x1080 resolution. We don't want the remote PC to match this, we need to be able to have low DPI setting on RDP, or scaling. Really the issue is nothing to do with RDP, more to do with the local laptop having high DPI. I have solved this by using a 3rd party app to force resolutions. – Joey – 2014-06-11T11:30:13.000

This works fine for me (hidpi client to lodpi server) with not configuration on the server: Remote Desktop Connection Manager (by MS)

(tested on win 8.1 with 200% dpi)

laktak

Posted 2014-06-09T13:45:57.883

Reputation: 2 223